get 1.5% discount for paying early, or up to 60 days to pay without interest, or both each month. i'm nelson gutierrez and i'm a member of the smarter money. this is what membership is. this is what membership does. the countdown to shutdown. what next? in a rare early sunday morning vote, the house of representatives pushed back against obama care one more time, setting the nation up for a government shutdown less than two days from now. more on that in a moment. also coming up in the show today, though, we wouldn't be talking about a shutdown right now if it weren't for ted cruz. we're going to get to the roots of that 1,279-minute speech he gave on the senate floor this week. those roots go all the way back to newt gingrich. and when cruz was speaking this

week, these two men were also speaking about obama care. we'll look at bill clinton, barack obama, and the 22-year journey that brings us to this week's launch of the affordable care act. here, by the way, is president obama trying to clear up some of the misconceptions about the law. >> let me start by saying i am psyched for obama care! >> there you go. i love that enthusiasm. >> because now that i've got free health care, i can get sick all the time. whoo! free medicine, y'all! >> well, that's not really how it works. >> i've stopped washing my hands and i'm licking subway poles. thanks, president! >> obviously that wasn't the real president obama, but it was from "saturday night live" which hours ago returned for its season. we'll look at how and why the show has been such an enduring source of political parody.

that's later. first, you may have been sleeping when it happened overnight. just over midnight in washington when the u.s. house of representatives took a giant step toward closing down the government. came on two votes, making the funding of the entire government contingent on radical changes to the president's health care law. first vote was to repeal a tax on medical devices and then moments after that, the house cast a second vote. this one to put off the implementation of the health care law for a year. forget the details of these votes for a minute, because the situation is really a lot simpler than that. when republicans convened in washington yesterday morning, they had a choice. a shutdown deadline was less than 72 hours away and the senate had handed them a clean bill to keep the government open, a clean bill meaning there was nothing attached to it designed to gut obama care. they knew, this is the republicans that run the house, they knew if they passed that clean bill, the shutdown drama would end on the spot. they also knew, because they had been warned repeatedly by senate democrats and president obama,

that if they changed that clean government funding bill, if they put anything in it attacking obama care, it would be dead on arrival in the senate, and because the clock was ticking, it would all but guarantee a government shutdown. so house republicans knew exactly what they were doing last night. and it is hard not to conclude from their actions that on some level they're okay with shutting down the government. >> how vital it is that we address the funding needs of this nation and how vital it is that we do it in a manner that is respectful of the american people and of our constituents. one of the things they have repeatedly said is they want to make certain that we delay the onset of obama care. >> so now the bill at the house passed overnight goes to the senate where harry reid says his chamber will strip out the anti-obama care provisions and

send it right back to the house. >> to be absolutely clear, we are going to accept nothing as it relates to obama care. there is a time and place for everything. and this is not that time or place. >> that was on thursday. reid reiterated this in a written statement yesterday. he called the house vote, quote, pointless. nbc news is roeporting that joh boehner and his team will meet on monday to figure out what to do after the senate rejects their bill. robert co robert costner reported yesterday, barring something unforeseen, this should take us into a shutdown tuesday. will history repeat itself? this is what the white house and this is what democrats are banking on. the idea is once the government shuts down, the public will blame republicans and the outrage will force the gop to

give up its obama care crusade and open up the government. that is what happened in the 90s when clinton refused to sign a bill that made deep cuts in medicare spending. his political standing improved and democrats gained a political weapon that they used relentlessly in the 1996 election. this is why there are republicans on capitol hill, who are there for that fight, and who are now warning their party that a shutdown is a dead end for them. >> i hope that our colleagues in the house will act in a fashion so that we can prevent a government shutdown. there is many options that they have, but if we shut down the government, i think the american people will be done a great disservice. there will be a heavy price to pay among the opinion of the american people if whoever is responsible for the shutdown in government. that's a fact. >> but it may not be that simple. today, most house republicans come from safely republican districts. even when things go terribly for their party nationally, they're

not going to lose their seats to democrats. but they can lose their seats to fellow republicans in primaries. so it could be that even if americans do blame a shutdown on the gop, house republicans will still decide that it is in their own personal political self-interest to resist giving in. and, again this is just the shutdown we're talking about here. even if this gets resolved soon, we're still weeks away from facing the exact same impasse over something even more ominous, the debt ceiling. i have to admit, i struggle to see how this can all be resolved. maybe our panel can help me. let's bring them in. for that, we have beth ryanert, ken salazar, josh green, the senior national correspondent at bloomberg business week, written this week's very timely cover story, john boehner doesn't run congress, meet the man who does, he's talking about jim demint. we'll ask him about that. and we have lynn sweet, the washington bureau chief for "the

chicago sun times." thank you for joining us. i guess i'll just start with -- i set it up there saying it looks like we're heading towards a shutdown here. i know there is a couple of days, i guess, maybe about 40 hours between now and when the deadline would be, and, beth, just is there anything we're missing here, anything that can happen between now and then that you can see that would keep us from going to a shutdown? >> at this point, i feel like the momentum is definitely headed in that direction. it felt completely different, maybe 24, 48 hours ago. it is amazing how quickly these things change. but at this point, it just seems like they're at a complete impasse. >> and, lynn, you know, covering this as well what do you think the next step would be then? harry reid says the senate will take out the anti-obama care language, they will send it back to the house unless, you know, they're bluffing somehow, they're putting out the word he doesn't have a plan at this point for what will come after that. how will the house respond to this? >> i think boehner may try to resurrect a plan he dropped, a

strategic shift, he may change the change he changed. got that, everybody? bear with me. the back -- the back stop was just a short time ago, a few days ago, was we're not going to win on defunding obama care. so let's just move the fight to the debt ceiling, which is coming up right after this. but then eric cantor and kevin mccarthy, his top lieutenants who are, i think, chained to the conservative base, said, no, we're going to stick with the defunding fight -- excuse me, we're going to now go from defund to delay. not tom delay, but delay as in stall. one other thing i want to toss out, as we're thinking about this, here is what makes this so much more complicated than in the '90s shutdown, and that is on tuesday, you have the opening of the obama care exchanges, you're going to have massive marketing efforts in every state to enroll.

we could get to that more, but what is different this time is that people are going to hear a lot of free and paid media that obama care is up and running. i think that will make it more confusing for people to say, how could they then shut it down? we could get to it but i want to add that out there. >> the backdrop for all this, there is this get rid of obama care push happening at the same time that the law is going to be going into effect. >> massive campaigns to get you to enroll. so the confusion factor is at the least, which is too bad, because, again, we could get to it. for people who don't have insurance this is the beginning of a new era, like it or not. >> josh, we teased your cover story there, looking at jim demint and the role of -- in terms of how the house behaved here. the amazing thing to me is the reporting in the last few days about members of the senate, about ted cruz and mike lee meeting with conservatives in the house and basically undercutting john boehner. and you can trace this to jim demint. >> exactly. this is all tied to obama care too. jim demint is the president of

the heritage foundation, former republican senator from south carolina, who is mitch mcconnell's chief tormenter and leading voice of dissent in the senate, left unexpectedly and kind of went to the outside because he thought he could have more of an effect kind of driving this radical brand of conservatism from the outside than he could in the senate. what he was doing all through august when members were home on break is doing a defund obama care town hall tour, traveled with him a little bit. and he would go around and draw hundreds, sometimes thousands of angry conservatives, whip them up against obama care, and convince them that if they lean hard enough on republican legislators, they can stop the law. i think that's why we have seen this kind of unexpected eruption from the grassroots, really forced boehner's hand. >> secretary salazar, let me ask you, the strategy here, from democrats and from the white house, seems to be that -- the hope i guess seems to be that at some point, whether it takes a shutdown to do this or not, republicans will start to feel some outrage from the public. and this will jar them, and this

will make them say, you know what, we have to give up on this defunding or delaying, whatever, trying to really radically overhaul obama care. but when you look at the politics of the house and the republican world today that josh is describing, do you think that's going to happen? >> well, first of all, i think when you look at somebody like senator harry reid, he has a spine of steel. they're not going to allow anything that is going to move forward that will defund obama care, but extraneous provisions on it. i think senator mccain got it right. that is shutting down the government is a recipe for disaster, a disaster when it happened 17 years ago. and if the republicans want to take that on in order to take on obama care, then i think the political calculus is that people of the united states are going to come down and say republicans, why are you not doing your job. this all comes and the dynamics, yes, of the implementation of the affordable health care act and also comes in the context of what is going to be the most onerous matter to deal with, the debt ceiling.

there was a time when the debt ceiling was not a huge issue. now the republicans are making it a huge issue. so seems to me at end of the day, steve, one, i think there is still a possibility that something could happen. i think it is unlikely. but if something were to happen, it could still move forward procedurally to get something done on monday to keep the government from shutting down. s secondly, once you get beyond the debt ceiling, you get to the longer term issue of simpson bowles, other people, the president, the congress has been struggling with for a long time. >> the dynamic too of jim demint no longer in the senate. you served with him for a couple of years when you were in the senate. can youalk about the influence he's still able to exert over, you know, over the senate and now the house? >> it is an incredible influence that outside groups like the heritage foundation and jim demint can impact influence and are influencing the senate. the fact is, i think one of the things about the senate i know is there are still some people who are constructive, who want to get things done and you saw that vote on breaking the

filibuster, the procedural vote to move forward. over 70 votes, and said, yes, we ought to go ahead and move forward with the issue. there is still some people who frankly are not that way and who would rather see the dysfunction of government in order to score political points. frankly, i always saw jim demint as being one of those people. >> we have one of the republicans who is okay with shutting down the government in the name of going after obama care. he's congressman james langford and he'll join us from washington. my customers can shop around.

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we're talking about the seemingly imminent now government shutdown and the political fallout surrounding it. i want to bring in congressman james langford. congressman, i guess i'll just say it, it looks like we have every indication from the senate, from harry reid, they are going to take out this obama

care language that you guys put in yesterday. they're going to send this right back to you and when you get it back, the government will probably be at that point in the process of shutting down. you get this bill back, you have a government shthat is shut dow and then what do you do then? >> we sended over to the senate three different pieces last night. we had unanimous support for a piece we sent over that said the military would be paid, veterans would be paid, the civilians around the military to make sure the troops are there bipartisan, wide support, unanimous support for that to send that over to the senate. hope the senate takes that up immediately so the military is not a victim in the middle of all this. we also sent over the deal with the medical device tax. there are more than 70 democrat senators who said they don't like the medical device tax. they have been on record with the test vote, and in fact al franken has a major part of his website that says here are the areas he's fighting the medical device tax to get rid of it. we sent that over and said we want this to deal with, this is bipartisan. and we sent over a delay.

and said there are major issues with the affordable care act and how it is being rolled out, whether unions complaining about that, whether that be individuals, whether that be navigators that say they don't understand what they're doing yet, don't have access to the exchanges yet, there are lots of problems. we said let's put this into a delay mode and try to protect folks that are frustrated with what is happening in the rollout. >> the senate made it absolutely clear the delay -- the idea of a one-year delay and the implem t implementation of the affordable care act is not going to happen. it looks like barring something totally unforeseen the government will shut down. when the house gets this back and that delay is out of it, what are you guys going to do? >> i will wait and defer to the speaker on that as far as what the total plan is for the whole conference. that's not up to one member to determine. i would assume we're going to send something back to them again, as we did with the defund it came back, we sent them the delay. we sent over 40 bills over to the senate expressing specific concerns and different parts of the law. the senate just continues to ignore all of those. we got to get to a point where

the senate actually looks at it and says there are problems with this law. i understand full well there are many senators that believe in the hope and the dream of what this law will do for many people. but there are also many people, constituents i have, republicans and democrats, that say they have concerns about what is going out. they were told if they like their insurance, they can keep it, they're finding in many ways they cannot keep it. their spouses are being drop, the 30-hour workweek is going away. the union leaders in my district are frustrated with what is happening now. there are concerns about the independent payment advisory board coming on next year and what that will mean. it is health care choices through physicians and patients. there are real issues here. while the president stepped up and said, if there are legitimate concerns, let's address them, we have yet to have a single time in three years that the senate has ever responded with a fix, has ever responded back and say we see that problem as well as try to resolve it. it never happened. we have to face the facts and the reality there are real problems on the ground and there are people that are going to be affected by this negatively. when i know the hope was, everything would work out great,

there are also people that are going to be negatively impacted by this. we want to fix that. >> congressman, in your district, i know that there are people who are not insured. and i'm wondering what you're going to tell them to do. because the issues that you said, there are problems, there are glitches, i respect that, but those problems you described or issues are for people who have insurance. people are going to be able to start the enrollment period starts tuesday. are you going to tell people in your district who don't have insurance not to get insurance? are you going to tell them don't use this opportunity to get health insurance? >> no. of course i wouldn't do that. let me give you an illustration, you mentioned my district specifically. we have ensure oak oak, we partner with medicare, we put in additional state funds into that and we pursue and there are commercials out, ways we have done for years, to try to pursue the uninsured to get them into an affordable play that

subsidizes them and helps them work up through get more stable insurance but protects them in that. we had to fight for two years to keep insure oklahoma as part of what we're doing. they have given us a one-year waiver to maintain that before it goes away. i had members on insure oklahoma, democrats on insure oklahoma that want to keep that and maintain their same insurance because they like it. they're going to lose it next year as well. both of those concerns are out there. we understand we have to address both of them. we can't have the senate step back and say we're going to do -- it is all or nothing, we're never going to fix anything, we're never going to take any of this on. we say let's do a pause, let's try to figure out all the things that -- >> sir, you are going to advise people to enroll in your state -- you are going to advise them, right? >> i'm not going to tell people what to do on it. i'm going to let the individuals choose. >> you said you were going to, but, okay. >> i'm not going to try to stop people, i'm not going to jump in their way and say please don't sign up for insurance. i'm not going to do that.

i don't think it is a role as a congressman to go to any individual in my district and tell them what to do. >> what do you expect to happen when the government shuts down? do you think the american people will rally to the side of republicans and put pressure on the white house? >> you know, i've been very interested by your dialogue earlier, not you specifically, but the whole group. it seems like there is the impression that republicans are rushing toward a shutdown as if something we're gleefully excited about. that's not intellectually honest. we're trying to deal with the real issues. >> even if you're not excited about it, what do you expect the effect will be? >> i expect two things. one is i would hope the senate would take up what 100% of the house voted on last night to make sure the troops and the civilians around them are not affected by this. we passed all of our appropriations bills for defense, for va, homeland security, senate hasn't taken up any of those to resolve it. that leaves us with a problem. the second part is, it is a government slowdown more than a

shutdown. people in my office have been notified which will be furloughed, which will be maintained. that has happened this past week in government offices all over the country. where the president has the option of being able to choose, which is essential, which is not essential, we'll function at a slower level for several days until we get this resolved. hopefully we can get it resolved before then. if we have good negotiations, i would anticipate we do a short-term extension for a few days while we work out the paperwork and get it done. house and the senate can work fast when they choose to. it is a matter of let's get to it. >> final question, congressman. if this comes down to it, can you see yourself voting. would you be open to voting for something that funds the government that does not delay obama care for a year, does not defund obama care, that lets at affordable care act be implemented. could you vote for something that luiz the government to open and allows the government to function and allows the affordable care act to function? is that possible for you? >> if we're negotiating for a few days and trying to work out the details of something, yes. where it is a short-term

extension to resolve some issues. but we have to address the very real problems out there and not just ignore them. we can't say there is a dream of what we hope twill be, when we know the reality on the ground what is occurring in many places and pretend it is not happening. >> congressman james lankford, republican from oklahoma, we thank you for joining us this morning. ♪ [ woman ] i'd be a writer. [ man ] i'd be a baker. [ woman ] i wanna be a pie maker. [ man ] i wanna be a pilot. [ woman ] i'd be an architect. what if i told you someone could pay you and what if that person were you? ♪ when you think about it, isn't that what retirement should be, paying ourselves to do what we love? ♪ chalky... not chalky. temporary... 24 hour. lots of tablets... one pill. you decide.

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[ male announcer ] some things are designed to draw crowds. others are designed to leave them behind. ♪ the all-new 2014 lexus is. it's your move. we just heard from congressman james lankford, republican from oklahoma. i think he speaks for a lot of the republicans who voted last night to basically put us on course for a shutdown. and secretary salazar, listening to that exchange now, curious what your thoughts are and what you heard from the congressman there. >> well, i think it is apples and oranges. i think republicans have a problem with obama care, can raise those issues, i think the president and his team, kathleen sebelius, have been out there saying if there are issues, they want to get those changed, resolve them as well. but there is two different things going on here. one is the fundamental responsibility that government to fund its operations. the second is dealing with this

policy issue on a matter that bedeviled the american people for a long time, that's health care, insurance reform, which is part of obama care. and so for republicans to basically say that there they're willing to shut down the government or the debate over the policy issue, i think it is an abdication of their responsibility as members of the house of representatives. it is the government of the people. we're up against the deadline and they should find a way of getting it done without essentially putting on -- creating a policy debate where you're putting apples and oranges in the same place that ought not to be there. >> the reason i can't see -- i'm having a hard time putting a road map together in my mind for how this all gets resolved. i'm thinking of john boehner who i think probably from getting truth serum, i would like to get the government reopened now, i would like to get the debt ceiling off the table, but we have to deal with -- james lankford is representative of what he's dealing with in his own ranks and i say what can

john boehner do that is going to satisfy owl the jamall the jame in the house of representatives? >> i think the congressman was hard pressed to address the question about what is going to happen when the government shuts down and the public starts reacting to that. once those members see the fallout there, you know, they may sort of reconsider their recent actions in the past. it is also interesting to think about the republican party as two different parties right now. there is -- it is usually talked about as sort of the establishment versus the grassroots. but you also have the folks outside washington and inside washington and interesting to see governor christie today or the other day talk about how he thought a shutdown was a bad idea. you can see him, you know, gleefully rubbing his hands together as folks like ted cruz and rand paul are hurdling us in that direction. this could be a great issue for them. >> i wonder, if you look at

the -- you set this up in the opening of the show, let's say nationally -- i'm not sure this is the case, but let's say this becomes a disaster nationally for the republican party if the government shuts down and the republicans are blamed and their standing is already not that strong, but it gets worse, but the average republican member of congress, we live in this era where the challenge threat is so real that someone like christine o'donnell can come in and beat someone like matt cassell. i don't know where the incentive is there for you to say we got to cater, give in -- >> the real danger for republicans and you hear this, even talking to demint, how can you justify the shift to the right after the 2012 election? obama's re-election, democrats gain in the house and the senate, and he fundamentally l rejects the idea that it was a vote on conservativism. if we just force the shutdown,

the american people agree with us, they will rally to our side and overthrow the -- >> it was such a -- i love that line. such a convenient thing to say. the republican party nominated mitt romney. they didn't want to have -- if they didn't want a fight with a real conservative, they could have -- >> the way to think about this, if you look at poll numbers, it is just not there. this is a faith-based strategy on the part of these radical republicans. if they just do what they want to happen, people will agree with them. i think they'll find out they're wrong. >> one poll that caused me to think that democrats may not be as well positioned as we may think is there was actually a bloomberg poll that showed president obama, in the past, always had several point advantage when people asked who are you going to blame for dysfunction and the polls showed increasingly people are blaming the president, especially independents. and i'm wondering if, you know, now that we have -- this is a ritual this whole government shutdown, people start to think, president obama is the guy in

charge. whether there is more blame shifting his way, this time. >> i think that is -- let's think of how fast things change. a week ago, people were saying president obama is terrible on foreign policy, he had a whole mess with syria, iran, and if you look at what just happened this week, a few blocks from where we're sitting, the security council passed a resolution telling syria to give up chemical weapons, pushed by obama's threat of military force and we had this discussion with iran. i only bring this international subject up in our talk about a domestic issue saying that the presidential fortunes change quickly, and i think the main issue i think that bane hears as boehner has as a leader is to get his or her members re-elected and that some of that is what you're seeing right now. >> and the other -- the other number one job of being speaker, if you're john boehner, to survive.

that's the story for the last -- >> keeping the majority is an overarching theme because that is where he's unified with his sometimes renegades, eric cantor and kevin mccarthy. >> that's true. we're out of time for this segment. i thank josh green and his story on the cover of "bloomberg business week" available to read now. check it out. how newt gingrich and another cable channel, not fox news, are to blame for ted cruz's rant on the floor this week. i'll explain that in a moment. first, if you found yourself away from the television yesterday, out at the park or at the farmers market, maybe just sleeping, but you may have missed "up against the clock," our weekly quiz show, taking the world by storm. here is a sample of what you may have missed yesterday. >> live from studio 3a in rockefeller center, usa, it's time for "up against the clock". >> we have two new contestants joining us today. welcome to you. marie and jonathan. they'll be challenging our returning champion.

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decision to spend 21 hours and 19 minutes yammering on the senate floor about obama care and white castle and green eggs and ham, and everything else he touched on what became the fourth longest untranscripted speech in the history of the u.s. senate. but i like to look for the root causes of things. if we identify the root cause of what happened this week, i think we need to go back to something that happened when ted cruz was just 13 years old. in may of 1984. >> this is nbc "nightly news" reported by tom brokaw who is off tonight. here is john palmer. >> they're having a sort of family feud on capitol hill over television, and who will be on it. house sessions have been carried on a special cable tv channel lately. but now they the republicans say the democrats, especially house speaker tip o'neill, are trying to control this particular airwave. >> the special cable tv channel that john palmer, the anchor you just saw talking there, the special cable tv channel was c-span. we know today it as a washington

institution, it is a fixture on cable dials all across the country. gavel to gavel coverage of every house session and all sorts of public affairs programming to fill out the rest of the hours. in the niche world of cable, c-span is such a hit that there are now three of them, three different c-span channels. back in 1984, it was a novelty. c-span was only five years old, and cable television itself wasn't much older than that. half the country still relied on rabbit ear and aluminum foil to get its television. stuck with the three big broadcast networks, fox network wasn't even around back then. this is where newt gingrich comes in. i'll give him credit for this much, he recognized before just about anybody else in congress the potential significance of that special cable television channel, the special significance of having a channel devoted to showing everything happening on the house floor, without any commentary, without any interruption. gingrich was a total outsider back then. he was an irritant to republican leaders. an oddity, a nuisance.

congress was a very different place. politics were very different. there were real authentic moderate republicans and liberal republicans. there were lots of them. gingrich took charge of a small band of conservative back benchers, and their mission was ideological, but also tactical. no more compromising with democrats. no more working with democrats, no more saying nice things about democrats. just open partisan warfare. so it was their vision and a vision that resonated powerfully with the conservative grassroots. and c-span was integral to the gingrich game plan. house rules aloud for something called special order speeches, when members could take to the floor after hours and they could hold court in any subject they wanted. but no one ever did. what was the point of droning on and on to an empty chamber. when c-span turned on its cameras, that changed the equation. the chamber was still empty, but for the first time ever, any american with cable television could watch at home. and gingrich got this. going to it right away.

he and his crew, this was a bunch of back benchers, they gobld up special orders time. night after night, they would stand on the house floor and take turns railing against democrats and preaching the conservative gospel as they defined it. and, remember, there was no fox news back then. rush limbaugh was an ex-disc jockey, working in pr for the kansas city royals, talk radio, conservative talk radio was still in its infancy. newt gingrich and his buddies talking to for hours on the house floor on c-span this became a thing for conservatives across the country. they tune in, they would absorb the message, they would feel the outrage they would embrace the cause. gingrich was terrible at building relationships inside the house. but with c-span, he could make himself a hero to the party base. the rhetoric in the special orders speeches intensified. the attacks grew sharper, more vitriolic, more personal. and then came the night in 1984 when gingrich read off the names of ten democratic congressman who had signed a letter to daniel ortega, the sandinista

leader who seized control of nicaragua, they urged him to hold democratic elections. they had gingrich thundered on the house floor undercut and crippled the foreign policy of the united states. he suggested prosecution under an 18th century law. he all but accused them of treason. it was then and only then that the speaker of the house, tip o'neil, the old democrat from cambridge, mass, noticed what was happening and ordered a new policy. from now on, he said, the camera in the house will have to pan periodically during special order speeches to show viewers at home that the chamber is empty. the next time gingrich called out democrats, no one would think democrats were just sitting there and taking it. and that decision by o'neil set the stage for an infamous in the history of the house, the day that made newt gingrich. 10:00 a.m. on may 15th, 1984, this time the chamber was full, and gingrich got the fight with tip o'neil he had been dreaming of for years. >> you deliberately stood on

that well before an empty house, and challenged these people and you challenged their americanism. and it is the lowest thing that i've ever seen in my 32 years in congress. >> in many ways it is my patriotism being impugned and where what we're seeing comes all too close to resembling mccarthyism of the left. >> it is impossible to overstate what this did for gingrich's place in his party. gop's leadership spent six years ignoring him, treating him like a gad fly. but now he baited tip o'neill, the face of the national democratic party into a fight, a fight that made national news, a fight where o'neill had his words taken down. this was newt gingrich's game. it was an outside game. exploiting television to appeal directly to the grassroots, to convince conservatives across america that he was the only republican in washington who was really going to fight for them. this is how he made his name, not by passing laws, not by chairing a committee, not by working with his colleagues.

there were plenty of republicans in washington who didn't like him. but they weren't about to say it. not when it would mark them as exactly the kind of sellout newt gingrich was fighting against on cable television. and it is the same outside game that ted cruz is playing now. using stunts like this week's to make himself a hero to the base, to make himself the kind of hero that any republican looking to get ahead in the world will think twice before attacking. question is, is the joke on all of us? we'll talk about that after this. bold has a huge imagination. a playground of innovation, color, and design. showing up where we least expect it. and taking inspiration from our wildest dreams. because kohler doesn't see the world in fixtures and faucets. it reimagines. coloring our lives in ways only bold could do, it's no wonder the world can't wait to see what kohler does next.

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joining us at the table to talk about ted cruz's marathon speech, the effect it is having on what is playing out now in washington, we have beth ryanert, with national journal, and interior secretary ken salaz salazar. ken baker and lynn sweet. ted cruz, like when he did this marathon speech, you know, on

monday and tuesday, a lot of people were saying, first of all, this isn't really a filibuster, this is completely pointless. i look back at this and say this was most important speech of the week this is the republican party, the national republican party in d.c. on capitol hill took its cues from what he did in the speech. >> also, here's why that speech was important to him. it creates a massive mailing list. you get a lot of public attention. so when you -- i saw all the e-mails going, sign ups on this e-mail if you support it. all kinds of groups are doing it. let's not forget we're coming up to the september 30th fund-raising deadline and people are using this issue to raise money off of all across the board. so for what ted cruz was doing for himself, actually this strategy of the informal filibuster actually makes sense for what he's doing. but this was no jimmy stewart moment here. >> no, but, the thing that strikes me we hear there is a

lot of anonymous quotes you'll find from aides to senators even senators themselves, i get the sense that if you took them sort of privately, took them all off the record you would hear overwhelmingly negative things about his colleagues from ted cruz, but he tapped into this sentiment among the grassroots so strongly, made himself the voice of conservative purity in washington that he gets to define the agenda. >> right. ted cruz is not there to make friends. in fact, he's exactly where he wants to be. he's positioned himself not only as someone who opposing the president, but as someone who is a rebel within his own party. and that has grand appeal to folks out there, the grassroots activists, conservatives, who are tired of the president, and they don't see their the republican party, you know, doing what they want to do either. so he's really exactly where he wants to be. it is interesting also in your -- the introduction you made, you talked about playing the outside game, you know, ted

cruz didn't pass any laws. in fact, he wasn't even a real filibuster, but you look at now the way people are charting their path to power. look at the way rand paul used to filibuster, look at the way wendy davis used to filibuster, now rung fning for governor of texas. the new path to power is to stand up for a really long time to talk. >> house republicans, thursday, friday, meeting with him, asking about what should we do, how do we take what you've done in the senate and make it into a real strategy? he's no longer just an outsider and rebel rouser. rand paul doesn't change policy very often. rubio is the leader of the republican party on this particular issue. his strategy is the strategy right now. >> cruz, cruz. >> what is incredible about this is that -- >> let me just say this, i was in the senate for a long time and let -- maybe not a long time, four years before i went to the cabinet, but the truth of the matter is anybody can go and grab a headline for a day. and you can do it by ethics that

are totally crazy and inappropriate. i would tell you, i looked at that vote on moving forward with the vote in the senate, there was overwhelming rejection of ted cruz. it wasn't only just the democrats, it was the republicans because they were furious, because at the end the day, you have democrats and republicans that want the government to function. you have ted cruz coming in and doing the antics he did, he put a number of his own republican colleagues in very bad shape. a big thing for him. he may be doing well with his base in texas. may have brought in a lot of money for him in fund-raising, lynn. but at the end of the day, i think -- >> let me follow up on that. i think we may have a graphic of this. i hope we do. there was a new poll that came out this week, 2016 polls are too early, but they measure the mood of the party now. and ted cruz by virtue of what happened this week rocketed to the top of the list. it strikes me that if he stumbled on a formula here where you can alienate all your

colleagues and get nothing done in the senate but still will mack you a hero to your party's grassroots, that's a dangerous recipe. >> i don't think that stands the test of time. it may give you the popularity for a day or a week or a month, but i think in terms of ultimately being a victor, running for president, becoming the leading role over marco rubio in the republican party, i don't think -- >> i just want to make a point before we run out of time, i'm bursting. i think what is fascinating here is he made an incursion into the house by trying to undercut the house republican leadership. that is worthy of discovery. >> ted cruz meet and plotting strategy. beth, quickly. >> what is interesting about the poll you showed is how marco rubio's star has fallen and he tried to pass legislation. he tried to pass legislation that republican party elders said was crucial to the party, you know, retaking the white house in 2016.

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if you follow the news at all this week, there is no way you missed this. the current democratic president and the last one talking with each one, live and unscripted on a stage in new york on tuesday. topic was health care and the timing was no coincidence. the affordable care act, obama care for all intents and purposes, goes into effect this coming tuesday. october 1st, with the opening of the state insurance exchanges. it is fitting that bill clinton and barack obama were together to talk about it, because they loom larger than anyone in the story of how we got to this moment. how we got to what really is a historic moment, a story that goes back 22 years, one that starts in an unlikely place, pennsylvania. the site of a special election for the senate in the fall of 1991. let's set the stage. george h.w. bush was president. first gulf war, the popular gulf war, ended a few months earlier.

left bush with astronomical poll numbers and made him look invincible for 1992 when he would be seeking re-election. made his party look invincible. the economy was struggling and memories of the gulf war triumph were fading, which is where pennsylvania comes in. that special senate election in the fall of 1991 produced a monumental political upset. democratic candidate harris woford came from 47 points behind to stun his republican opponent. the fact he did this caught the political world's attention and meant maybe bush wasn't so unbeatable after all. democrats paid closer attention, because they wanted to know how woford had done it. >> reporter: democrats in philadelphia and most probably in the rest of the country were cheering a new hero, harris wofford had shown them how to win. >> it is time to take care of our own, our own people, and our own problems and to do it, do it with the will and the resources and the commitment that we give

to the challenges abroad. >> reporter: wofford talked jobs, deficit, education, and scored heavily with one key issue. >> we want national health insurance and we want it now. >> national health insurance. that was harris wofford's calling card. his most famous ad, he looked into the camera and said if criminals have a right to a lawyer, i think working americans should have a right to a doctor. here's where it gets fun. the morning after he won that election, he got a phone call, from a democrat who was planning to run for president in 1992, and he wanted to know about wofford's campaign team, who were they, were they as good as they seemed and should he hire them? that's how it was that bill clinton teamed up with james carville and paul begala. and the clinton campaign in 1992 played out a lot like wofford's, started out as the underdog, made national health care one of his centerpiece issues. when he was sworn in in 1993, he was in position to deliver, excuse me, because his party had

big majorities in the house and the senate. clinton moved fast, put his wife in charge of drafting a new national health care plan, made his pitch to congress almost exactly 20 years ago. >> this health care security card will offer this package of benefits in a way that can never be taken away. so let us agree on this. whatever else we disagree on, before this congress finishes its work next year, you will pass and i will sign legislation to guarantee the security to every citizen of this country. >> clinton delivered that speech, the overwhelming consensus was that some kind of real health care reform would be passed and would become law in the next year. which, of course, is not at all what happened. not every democrat was on board with clinton's plan, not every democrat was on board with the idea that there was a health

care crisis in america. some republicans tried to meet clinton halfway. there was, believe it or not, a republican bill in 1993, that included an individual mandate. but most of those republicans just listened to bill crystal, who wrote a memo pleading with republicans simply to oppose health care reform and promising them they would reap an electoral windfall by doing so. they did. bill clinton's push for universal health insurance was dead and republicans scored a midterm election tsunami, winning control of the house for the first time in 40 years. that was that at least for the clinton era. america's health care problem did not go away. so why in 2006 ted kennedy was able to work with the republican governor of his home state, mitt romney, en a groundbreaking law that required all residents to have insurance. hillary clinton's message was that she learned from the 1990s, she would be ready for the relentless fight republicans

would mount. barack obama's pitch was that he would change the tone in washington, he would forge the bipartisan health care consensus that had alluded bill and hillary. obama won the argument, but then as president confronted the reality. >> there are also those who claim that our reform efforts would ensure illegal immigrants. this, too, is false. the reforms -- the reforms i'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally. >> you lie! >> not true. >> in the end, obama got health care through but not with a single republican vote. and with profound electoral damage in the 2010 midterms. it's been three and a half years since the affordable care act passed congress. on the eve of the implementation, health care politics haven't really changed much. the law is as popular or unpopular as ever. and the republican party remains adamantly committed to dismantling it at any cost.

when will these dynamics change? can they change? or can obama care work even if one of the two major parties never accepts its legitimacy. we'll talk about this with perry baker jr., beth ryanert and richard wolffe, executive editor at msnbc.com and author of the new book "the message, the reselling of president obama." i'll start with joe. i think no one knows the clinton years better than joe conyers. i wonder how you look at that scene this week with bill clinton and barack obama getting together to talk about health care. it really seems to me that the failure of bill clinton was an essential on health care was an essential element in the success of getting the affordable care act through under president obama. >> i could not agree more, steve. i would say one thing. the reason that the two democratic presidents were sitting on that stage together lies within the history of health care that goes back even

further. it goes back to truman at least in the democratic party, when in 48 he wanted to institute a national health system that was going to be something like what the british were doing at that time in the uk. which was instituting national health. of course, the republicans opposed it, just as they opposed medicare, lyndon johnson did it in '65 with some republican support but that was the rise of ronald reagan as telling us if we had medicare, we would end up as the soviet union. this has been an overarching theme and clinton knew that. begala and carville knew that too. this is a bedrock issue between the two parties. it remains so. so whatever the differences that clinton and obama have had over the last several years, they're trivial compared to the agreement about this fundamental concern. i think you're right about that. >> and, richard, i guess the big difference between the '90s and today, besides the fact they didn't get it through in the '90s, by having it rejected or

fail in the 1990s, the issue went away after 1994. bill clinton wasn't pursuing it anymore. you know the obama world very well. has it surprised them that since the three and a half years that it made it through congress, that the poll numbers haven't changed that much? >> yes, it has. and it is important to understand those poll numbers. reading the post mortems of 1993 and '94 and the post mortems prematurely written now there is a lot of misinterpretation of the poll data. we say it is unpopular, but about a third of people who don't like obama care think it is not liberal enough. so we have to put the opposition -- it is a very complex thing. and it is easy to prey on people's fears. but, yes, the obama people felt as the provisions would roll through, things like coverage for pre-existing conditions, allowing people up to the age of 25, 26 come on their parents

plan, those things would transform people's attitudes of the whole thing. if you call it health care reform, if you call it even universal health care, if you call it the affordable care act, the numbers change completely. you call it obama care, and opposition goes through the roof. so messaging is important. that's why that tag team of the two presidents is so important. bill clinton, master of the message, knows how to sell something in many ways. people said that was the most defining thing about the clinton era. you've got president obama, no debate about whether he had -- there is no rational debate about whether he had a mandate, not in one election, but in two elections. no discussion about whether he missold his approach to health care. he beefed it up. he took on hillary clinton's call for universal mandate. but actually, coming to sell it, his own team has said repeatedly, well, we know we messed up it very complicated. these things are easily distorted. but you are in control of the

white house and all of the messaging and still struggling to sell it today. >> i wonder what they could do. if there is much they could do to sell it in the sense that the entire republican party decided as the most fundamental thing it means is to be against obama care and against the horrible socialist plot. if the entire political party is against it like that, that basically rules out half the country that will be resistant to it because your name is on it. >> right. i don't think we even appreciate the kind of constitutional revolutionary change that the president is trying to implement without the other party. i don't think we have done that in this country. i think at this point, you know, the white house is going to continue to try to sell it as best it can, but i heard one white house adviser say, now we're hoping that while i guess it failed the idea that the people with pre-existing conditions would spread the word that hasn't worked out as planned, but they're hoping as people actually go to the

website, sign up, see what the numbers are, realize they can get health insurance, they hope that now will help people -- help spread the word about, you know, what the law is intended to do. >> how sustainable is it the point beth makes, we're in unchartered territory with one party continuing to oppose us. we're seeing it now, this weird juxtaposition, this is the week of implementation, also the week we may is a government shutdown. how sustainable is that long-term? >> it is challenging. i was in kentucky a few weeks ago, one thing one woman told me was, what if it doesn't pass what if it doesn't pass, she's nervous. all this talk makes her think it is not a law yet, which is a lo logical thing to feel. i think bill clinton, barack obama, the discussion is a little less important. you go to the website on october 1st in kentucky, you won't sign up for obama care. you don't have to vote for obama, you don't have to like obama even.

you have to go on the website, look at the prices and so on. if it worbz fks for you, you probably will buy cheap insurance. if it doesn't, you probably won't. i think the politicians will be less important in the next six months and the actual details of the health care policy will at some point begin to matter more. the polling numbers of obama care in december will not matter if you sign up for governor of california and that's what you're doing. >> i think there is a flip side to that that does affect the political -- the political popularity of obama care of the affordable care act. and i think it affects the political future. i'll get into that after this break. ♪

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before the break, perry, you were talking about obviously lots of real life ramifications of what is going to happen in terms of open enrollment for the

exchanges. it raises the possibility to me, how it might affect the republican opinion of obama care, if people start signing up for their state insurance ex-changes and not signing up for the obama care exchange, not getting the obama care card in the mail and the obama care voucher, they may, in my mind, may think at what point do they realize this is obama care? we had that woman that called up and said keep your government hands off my medicare. will we have a situation where people benefit from this, hoosier care in indiana or whatever it is, and still be radically opposed to obama care? >> republican governors take the funds which is an important part of what obama care does. i predict like in the recovery care act where people thought they were getting tax cuts and thought they were getting pay raises from their employers because the obama administration

wasn't explaining what was going on. they thought they would recognize, here is all this good stuff, it must be from the obama guy, they'll accrue all the medical benefits, see bet dealers, premiums or medicaid expense or better terms from their insurers and here is my not so bold prediction. republicans will at some point be in a position to quote, unquote, repeal obama care, which will mean some provision that they say defines the entirety of obama care. it will be in law -- and popular, up to 95% of the provisions in the actual legislation. but they'll find some token thing and say, look, we delivered on our promise to repeal something. >> 2018, repealing the medical device tax. that's the first explanation of for how to break that fever. that brings me -- i want to play this, this will go back 20 years. i want to play this clip. 20 years ago this week we just played bill clinton giving a speech to congress.

his wife hillary was running the health care fask fortask force testified. >> while i don't share the chairman's joy at our holding hearings on a government run health care system, i do share his intention to make the debate in the legislative process as exciting as possible. >> i'm sure you'll do that, mr. armey. you and dr. kevorkian. >> wow. >> there is a back story. about a week before that, dick armey evoked kevorkian, the euthanasia doctor. but that brings me to the longer term question here about the future of the affordable care act. everybody knows right now hillary clinton is the front-runner if she runs for president in 2016. she very well may be our next president and implement the next phases of the affordable care act. you play this out five or ten

years, what is this going to look like five or ten years from now? >> if hillary clinton runs for president there is no question she will run as the fiercest possible defender of the affordable care act. she has spoken about it since then. she talked about it the other day at cgi, off in another forum there. and her husband and they will be out there fighting for this as -- it will become her program if she's president. and she will do everything she can to put it in -- and it will become hillary care on the right. they will transition back to, okay -- >> hillary cares what they call it in the '90s. >> and it will be -- we'll revisit all of that. and -- but in a different position because people will be getting the benefits and be able -- she'll be able to say, you know what, i was right about this. my husband was right about this. this is going to save the country money. it is going to provide better future for a lot of children in this country, which is what they started to do with s-chip in the '90s. i think it will be her program.

i think she'll do that. >> we keep mentioning obama, bill clinton, hillary clinton, can't sell this plan. one thing to keep in mind is they -- all democratic presidents of the modern era try to talk about themselves as champions of the middle class. barack obama never uses the term poor. bill clinton helped with the health security act. the uninsured are often poor. it is hard to come up with a point. at the end of the day, a health insurance plan is about people who don't call their congressman very often. that makes it hard to mention something that for a lot of people, health insurance, universal health insurance will not help us very much. we have jobs. it will cost us tax money probably. that's part of the challenge of the plan. this is a welfare policy of sorts and always -- >> that's the interesting thing. a lot of comparisons made between the implegs of medicare in 1965. medicare was a universal thing. get to 65, you'll get it.

a lot of people will never get benefits from this. they'll be fine, never get benefits from this. i wonder if that allows some myths to live. >> two points, if you look at the polling when medicare part d came out it was even more unpopular. >> the prescription drug -- >> yes, exactly. even more unpopular than obama care is now. and now it is widely, you know, accepted and i think most seniors are glad they have it. the other point is, starting to see what perry said about the -- pushback from the democratic party, looking at hispanics. those folks, of course, are the swing group, the fastest growing party of the electorate and would disproportionately benefit from obama care and i think the polling shows like obama care. and that is an opening for democrats to continue to use, youknow, as they used immigration as a wedge issue, they will now be using health care as a wedge issue, i think. >> president obama will leave office in january of 2017. i think we'll stop calling it

obama care. look at the moment we're in now where we have the shutdown, debt ceiling drama tied up with the future of obama care. 2014 midterms, not a lot of optimism, democrats can win it back then. how confident are you that obama care as we now know it survives to january 2017? >> i think it survives. i hope the president will pick up the theme that president clinton talked about so much, not just the other day, but last year, which is this is good for the u.s. economy. it is important for the u.s. to get into the 20th century, let alone the 21st century to provide health care for all citizens and making sure cost goes down. if you see tcosts going down, i think that argument has a lot of sail yens and will be hard for the republicans to push forward. i think they'll eventually give up. >> look at what ted cruz said, once you start giving people government benefits, they tend to not want them taken away. republicans get it. they try to repeal medicare all

the time, but somehow they never really get a detailed plan where it is going to happen. there say reason for that. >> not trying to repeal medicare. >> trying to save it, right. >> that one didn't work. save it. >> right. >> it is one of those, i tend to share what you're saying, i have to admit, i'm thinking back to march 2010 and we're telling people, talk to me in a year or two, and we're still here now saying when is this going to turn around. but it is still survived which is something else. i want to thank beth ryanert, perry bacon jr. and joe conoson. we promised earlier we would show you the dramatic conclusion of "up against the clock," our game show, the closest contest in the history of "up against the clock." here's how it ended. >> -- 400, jonathan, you have 200, joe, you have negative 200. this is a 300 point question. members of congress from both parties expressed concern this week when the u.s. postal

service announced plans to raise the cost of a first class stamp from 46 cents to what? jonathan for the win. >> 49 cents. >> correct! jonathan takes it on the last question of the game! >> so jonathan walked away with the coveted gold up cup. you can rewatch the whole game from yesterday on up.msnbc.com. if you're hungry for more. don't worry. because up against the clock will be back next saturday. before then, up next, political satire and "saturday night live" which kicked off the 39th season last night. that's right ahead.

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floor wond whaeering what we co say about it. we were also wondering what our neighbors at the other end of the floor would say about it. let's check it out. >> ted cruz gave a speech on the floor of the senate, during which he read dr. seuss's green eggs of ham, did an impression of darth vader and talked about his love for white castle. i'm not sure what the speech is for, but i'm guessing legalizing weed. you note o you know the old saying, if you can't beat them, kikt back the into the woods. >> "saturday night live" is back for another season and we'll talk about the effect it had on real world politics. paid to do g you really love, what would you do?" ♪ [ woman ] i'd be a writer. [ man ] i'd be a baker. [ woman ] i wanna be a pie maker. [ man ] i wanna be a pilot. [ woman ] i'd be an architect. what if i told you someone could pay you

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characters, you know "saturday night live," the late night sketch comedy show that kicked off its 39th year on the air, a few floors above us, just a few hours ago. "snl" has left an enduring mark on american culture. find anyone my age, which means anyone over 30 and just mention unfrozen cave men lawyer or the driving cat, you can pretty much bet they'll smile with recognition. but here's the part where we make this relevant to "up," "saturday night live" has made and continues to make an indelible mark on american political culture. for four decades it has been the go-to source for sendups of politicians, the political media, whatever the political news or political scandal of the moment happens to be. it all started in the gerald ford administration, chefry chase looked nothing like the accidental president, but "snl" wasn't going for physical resemblance, just physical comedy. lbj had once kwipd as a football player at the university of michigan, ford played one too many games without a helmet.

and chase portrayed him as an affable stumble bum, tripping and falling all over the place. every president since then has gotten the "snl" treatment. who doesn't remember dana carvey mimicking george h.w. bush's penchant for speaking in baffling sentence fragments. there was will ferrell's dead on impression of george w. bush as a president who never let his own confusion interfere with his self-confidence. >> i don't know what that was all about, but i will tell you this, don't mess with texas. >> worlds have occasionally collided when newt gingrich and house republicans met another newt gingrich, the one played by chris farley back in the 1990s. and when bill clinton raised hands triumphantly with darrell hammond who was in character that night. "snl" haslam pooned presidents, mayors, a speaker of the house or two, also laufnched rail lif

senator, al franken. these days "snl" has more competition than ever when it comes to political satire. we thought we would commemorate the start of the new season by talking about why the show's political humor has been so enduring and where it is going from here. for that, i want to bring in david isikoff with "the new york times" who last month chronicle an oral history of "snl" auditions for the paper, back with us, lynn sweet for "the chicago sun times," also joining us is steve battaglia, the business editor with "tv guide magazine" and still with us, the very funny richard wolffe, on the receiving end of an "snl" parody himself. i can't tell who is who there. one is fred armisen, one is richard wolffe. richard wolffe has gotten the treatment. he can tell us a little bit about that. let's start by looking at sort of where this all started. and, dave, you looked back at the history of "snl." we mentioned chevy chase and

gerald ford. how did it become that "snl" became the place that whenever anything happens in politics, if "snl" is on the air, everybody is asking what are they going to do about it this weekend. >> that's something that has taken 40 years to get them to the place where they r as you mentioned at the beginning of the show, the ford impression was really more about slapstick and pratfalls than about pointed political commentary. dan aykroyd would do nixon or carter. it is really not until the '80s it becomes more politically astute. and you get not only phil hartman occasionally doing reagan, but once carvey becomes george h.w. bush, and really has the rights in the voice and the mannerisms, it became about every week, what is carvey going to do as bush. >> dana carvey -- >> you have to look at how television has changed. "saturday night live" when it began in the 1970s, you watched it, and if you wanted to see it again, you had to wait until there was a repeat or wait until the clip show. now, the show circulates on so

many different platforms, immediately after you have seen it. you can go on the web and you can see embedded clips on various websites. showing some this morning. they'll show them on morning joe and the "today" show tomorrow. it becomes part of the national conversation through all the different ways that we have to communicate now. >> and do we know -- you're talking about that shift maybe sometime in the '80s, around reagan and george bush sr., was it because of -- was it something about the politics of the time that suddenly there was this need for what "snl" was doing, something about the writers on the show, al franken was writing the show, do you know what was behind that shift? does anybody have a sense of that? >> the show has always had a left-leaning, liberal sensibility. reagan, i think, they were never really able to tag him with anything. they couldn't really get anything on him. and when bush came into office, and there was a -- i think a certain uncertainty about how he would run the country, what kind

of leader he would be and carvey stepped into that void. carvey's impression of bush almost became the national standard for bush. i think we -- the catch phrases that we associate with bush are really lines that carvey was delivering on the show. >> we can play a clip. this was the beginning of the dana carvey/george h.w. bush impersonation, from the campaign in 1988, the real george bush against michael dukakis. it is apparent when they do the fake debate, the real george bush will win the election. a lot of people are asking why? "snl" captured that with this scene. >> more has to be done, but the program is in place. make no mistake. we are doing the job, so let's just stay the course and keep on track, stay the course. >> you still have 50 seconds left, mr. vice president. >> well, let me just sum up, on track, stay the course, a

thousand points of light, stay the course. >> mm-hmm. governor dukakis, rebuttal? >> i can't believe i'm losing to this guy. >> richard, they captured something, wasn't the broad popular sentiment in the country because george h.w. bush won handily over michael dukakis, but people watching the election closely, a lot of people were saying how is this guy so far ahead? >> dana carvey's impression, it is the whole character he built, it was brilliant. it stands up all these years later. one of the great things watching, i think it is terrific too, will ferrell and the who encapsulation of the two bushes is the landmark achievement here. if you look back at, say, what they are doing on funny or die, big fan of that site, will ferrell's site there, he actually reconvened all the former presidents from the "snl" days to explain the consumer

financial protection board. it was the most obscure thing that was the reason for reunion. dana carvey still kills it. and what it does is it does project a character on these strange figures, it is striking that they haven't been able to do the same with president obama or president reagan for infrequent voters, people turning in vaguely to the news, not understanding it, has the same impact, really doing what jon stewart is doing today. it does shape opinions for people who aren't paying that close attention, or for people who just don't want to invest the time to figure out who these politicians are. >> the show does a lot because most of the time through its decades, it was -- it owned the game of summarizing the key political event or events of the week, define it, and as richard said, telling it to an audience who was not tuning in politics. this was the days before cable. so when they were able to own it, they -- i guess we could run upstairs and ask the people who are doing it, but as a viewer, it looked to me that they made a

decision to say we're going to tell you what is lampoonable of the week and you should listen to this and we're going to make it funny. and we did it. it also became an important, i think, stack of the show itself, because it was dependable. just like "weekend update" is, faux news tied to the news. as an "snl" historian, i think they realize that people who kind of don't like the news liked it the way they did it. and in their update. but it is still the -- the achievement that is remarkable is that they were able to sustain this political satire with the enormous competition that is around today. >> exactly right. and we'll pick that up in a minute, talking about "the daily show," "comedy central", the other sources of political satire, funny or die, on the web, a couple of other clips too. and get into that question, richard started to get into why

are so presidents funnier than others. why is -- the obama impersonation is a good sort of -- it is a good technical impersonation, but i don't know it adds up to as much as the george bush sr. or reagan impersonati impersonations. when we made our commitment to the gulf, bp had two big goals: help the gulf recover and learn from what happened so we could be a better, safer energy company. i can tell you - safety is at the heart of everything we do. we've added cutting-edge technology, like a new deepwater well cap and a state-of-the-art monitoring center, where experts

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with an innovative showerhead plus wireless speaker, kohler is the proud sponsor of singing in the shower. in my plan, the lock box would be used only for social security and medicare. it would have two different locks. >> governor bush. >> now, now, one of the keys to the lock box would be kept by the president. the other key would be sealed in a small magnetic container and placed under the bumper of the senate majority leader's car. >> darrell hammond as al gore in 2000. the interesting thing -- story about that, that had real political implications. >> it was devastating.

it not only reinforced what people already were feeling about gore's performance in that debate, but the campaign showed it to him. and he then proceeded to overcompensate in the -- in the second debate where he became very -- after being very aggressive towards bush, he pulled it back completely. and it became another lackluster debate performance. these sketches do occasionally insert themselves into the narrative of the race. i don't think anybody went after sarah palin hard in the campaign until tina fey really went out there and conveyed that, you know, maybe this woman is not qualified to be vice president of the united states. i think it really opened a door. and that's when the show succeeds. when it sort of connects and sort of articulates feelings that are already out there. >> richard, from the campaign side, do we have a sense of how

mindful they are about this sort of thing? whether it is "snl" or whether it is the daily show or any political comedy shows to not giving material to them, to, like, we just put something out there, we're going to see this on "snl" this weekend, we're going to see this on the daily show, is that something they're thinking about and trying to strategize around somehow? >> they do worry about what appears. often they make predictions and say, this is the daily show moment. but they always get it wrong, right? they're very bad at predicts of what appears, they understand the whole business. they do pay close attention. the other thing apart from we talked about how it reaches infrequent voters, these people, political insiders are watching these shows. they're avid fans. the devastating thing about tina fey and sarah palin is she just read back sarah palin's words. she didn't have to exaggerate because they were so prepostero preposterous. do the campaigns care? yes, they absolutely care. that's why you see the presidents increasingly and the candidates all making their worshipful tours of the late

night shows and especially jon stewart now. not the venue for them to do that on "snl," but late night comedy is really important to reach people who are sort of engaged with politics, but may choose not to show up and vote. those are exactly the kind of people you want. >> they will occasionally turn up -- the real candidates will show up on "snl" sometimes. >> it was touchy whether or not they could get sarah palin to be on the show during the 2008 campaign because they had, you know, lamb typhopooned her so mercifully and mccain showed up as a host. he had a good relationship with the show. they with were handed the gift of having the relationship with mccain and having an alumna of the show who looked like the vice presidential nominee. >> it is good for turning around the image if you do the show and you pull it off and you can -- the number one rule of political humor is to be self-deprecating and if there is ever a home for

that, it is on "snl." >> steve forbes of all people, the last person you would associate with political comedy, you know, at least, he did "snl" as a guest host running for president back in 1986. i was thinking about this, talking about this off the air, as i look back at the last 40er years of "snl" and think what are the sketches that stand out to me and i come back to one political era, the late '80s and early '90s, we had the george bush sr. impersonation, phil hartman was ronald reagan, and i sort of went to myself, how much of that was obviously the actors themselves but al franken was writing so much of the political content, al franken went on to become the united states senator, how much of this is of what we're seeing is so dependent on who the writers are at any given moment. >> franken is an important voice for them, as is jim downey, the writer in the same era and stuck

around with the show until just last season. i think it is -- there is a certain volatility at that time. and we didn't really know which way the country was leaning. even among the writing staff. there are left leaning voices and right leaning voices, and just sort of -- there was a magic about not only having people on your performing -- your performance ensemble who could play the people dead on, but the sketches were not just about replicating these people, it was about having a joke or underlying idea that was sending these people up as opposed to just, you know, re-enactment. >> the reagan won that always stant s stands out in my mind, imagine the whole character of ronald reagan, a lazy, detach ed character, and phil hartman, we have to play this for a second. >> you're new. here's how we do things. the red countries are the countries we sell arms to. the green countries are the

countries we wash our money. the blue countries are -- >> excuse me, mr. president, sir. >> yes. >> your 11:30 photo opportunity, the little girl who sold the most girl scout cookies. >> okay. let's get it over with. everybody out. come on, move, move. this is the part of the job i hate. >> i just look back and say, it was brilliant. it took it in a direction that was kind of obvious, but nobody thought of for the president. >> very hard to get laughs out of reagan. i think they're going through the same thing with barack obama. he's such a complete natural, so confident in today's media environment. where is the quirk that you can really sort of riff off of. it is kind of a challenge. i think it really helps to have a president that is sort of out there, that has -- that say real target that you can -- and certainly the rascalliness of bill clinton, mal aprops of

george w. bush or the first george w. bush and you have to sort of take the characteristics and exaggerate them. and reagan and obama are pretty smooth. >> it is true. when they spoof the debate last fall, the obama/romney debate, the joke was he was thinking too much about his anniversary. the joke was he loved his wife too much. i think they had more to work with than that. what do we know today? our answers from the panel coming up after this. thank you orville and wilbur... ...amelia... neil and buzz:

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all right. it's time to find out what our guests think we should know for the week ahead. i'll start with you, steve. >> i'll do a plug for tv.magazine. this week, we're unveiling the 60 wiggest tv news moments of all time, going from the checker speech in 1962, nixon, to the bombing at the boston marathon. and we also rank the top ten. moon landing, nixon resignation,

9/11. you can pick it up and you'll take a look. >> i want to look at that list. >> richard? >> i hate to be serious after all of this, but we've gone through a seismic shift in our politics in the last 48 hours. i think we're much, much more likely to head into default soon and we are much, much more likely to see democrats take back the house next year. >> to use "snl" character, debbie downer right there with richard. >> i'll be even more grimmer, the only thing that matters this week is the season and series finale of "breaking bad." viewers have been waiting for five years to learn the fate of jesse and walter, and after that, tv might as well shut down, because i don't know what's going to come after that. >> i have to avoid twitter and watch it on dvr after. no spoilers. >> here's my thing. senator ted cruz is very fond of quoting james madison and he says he's inspired him. but in the federalist papers of 1787, james madison wrote about the tyranny of the minority, and i want to give you this quote to look ahead to the future.

there are two methods of curing the mischiefs of faction, maddison wrote, the one by removing its causes, the other by controlling its effects. >> lynn did her homework for today's shows. that's a good one. i want to thank steve, richard, david, and lynn. thanks for getting up today. appreciate it. we'll be right here next week, official up against the clock third place finisher edd eer ev mcmorris-santoro will be on our list. it's a bizarre television/radio stunt you will not want to miss. stick around, mhp is next. we'll see you next week here on "up." ♪ [ male announcer ] now, taking care of things at home is just a tap away.

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